2010.05.16

Comics Of The Weak: I Wanted A Mission, And For My Sins, They Gave Me One

I need to borify it more.

The New Avengers Finale # 1Written by Brian Michael BendisArt by Bryan HitchPublished by Marvel Comics

This piece of shit, oh mama. When did Bryan Hitch get so avant garde? Jesus this fucking guy. Spits out random bullshit like he's way behind in the random bullshit race.What the fuck are you two doing with your hands, you freaks? This ain't the time for indian wrestling.

Oh sure, it was pretty nice of Tony Stark to loan out the gigantic fancy helicarrier, too bad he couldn't loan one that has the technology necessary to make and receive fucking phone calls. And say, what's up with the 1,001 faces of Luke "Being black, that's my costume" Cage? Hell, it's one thing if his face changes throughout the issue because 17 different inkers were used to get the thing out on time, DC does that shit all the time, but on the same page? You've already drawn his face. Just copy your own work, how hard is that? It's right there! It's on the same page!

Here's a quote that has two colons in it: "I think about that and I say: if God, all of a sudden, decided: All right, you're done....I know, in my heart, I'm cool because we did all we could. I know that."

You know something, that is: very inspirational, Luke Cage, and yes, God would: totally agree with you about: that whole, taking a walk thing, that you're talking about doing because you're: cool with what you did, which was talk a lot for six years about your wife wanting to fuck Spider-Man and also walking, but never mastering the art of fighting in an interesting way: but just walking, at the end of this comic, because yes: taking a walk; that's how, the reader will know that: this story was totally planned out over the course of years and not: come up with on the fly while the writer was: playing Xbox Live and thinking 'bout: Glee.

Seriously, what the fuck are you doing? Are you planning to jack off his forearm?

The Flash # 2Written by Geoff JohnsArt by Francis ManapulPublished by DC Comics

If this issue of The Flash is any indication of how the character views himself as a person, than The Flash is a giant dickhead. He waits around for situations to arise wherein he can make snap judgments, all of which paint him as "the" vocal force for truth and honesty in a world where everybody else is lazy, dishonest & morally suspect. In other words, he's a religious zealot, and his religion is himself. He doesn't seek out opportunities to be a hero, he waits for situations to arrive, and then he acts like a prissy schoolmarm. Afterwards, he makes sure to point out, specifically, why he did a great job at them, why you didn't, and why you should have, and you would have, if you were more like him. But you're not. Oh wait. You are! You're a blogger! Or a webcartoonist. Same thing. Like the Flash!

Hey, they finally cut the kid's hair and started dressing him in boy clothes. There's even some moments in this that call back to that This Is A Soap Opera Romance comic it used to be, but then it throws down the pause button to get all preachy and reference that Chris Rock "that train is never late!" routine. Nothing's as American as fat white cartoon principals doing Chris Rock routines for screeching Lovejoy types, badly. More make out sessions please.

This is a Holla-Caust tie-in books where DC editors continue to eliminate the malignant racial strand of "whatsem, you know, non-whites", but it's also about a chick that some dude named Volcano Vagina. Which is a good name, and hey, maybe this will be the book we're all waiting for, the book where they finish the triangle they're currently drawing and include a scene where Hal Jordan turns to Ollie in the heat of the moment and says "You're acting pretty Jew-y there, buster brown." For right now though, this is just one of those comics that you think you need to read because you heard it includes a part where some Asian dude catches a giant sword with his chest while a rape/molestation victim tries to fire fuck her way towards mental health, but then you read it and realize that nobody is playing it for laughs, it's just all serious. And then you just feel bored, which makes you worry that maybe something's wrong with you because you aren't getting all Fanta-Angry about bad comics anymore but then you get over it and realize that the numbers for this thing are so low that it could have been laced with ecstasy and there'd only be like two heart attacks.

There's a warning on the recap page that says "Read Siege # 4 Before Reading This Book", which you could be grateful for, except that it is at the bottom of the page, underneath four paragraphs of information. One of those paragraphs--the last one before the warning, actually--is a textual retelling of the entire conclusion of Siege # 4, which, you stupid fuck, are supposed to read before you read this, you dumb motherfucker, didn't you know to read the bottom words first? How you put your pants on, stupid fuck? How'd you know where to buy that shitty whore's cap, you flakey cunt?

Why is there a recap page for a comic that came out on the same day? Because Marvel knows that some people might not have read Siege # 4, but they definitely plan to read the Siege Epilogue?

Funeral porn is a tough gig, especially when nobody--and this isn't the normal comic book definintion of "nobody", this is the actual term, zero human beings--wanted a fucking thing to do with the character who is being laid to rest. Simply put, this guy? This Sentry character? This is somebody who irritated absolutely every single person who ever laid eyes on him. He was a ringer, a plot device, a bad idea. That doesn't necessarily mean that everybody wanted him to die--there's plenty of people who actively read super-hero stuff who don't require that the things they dislike be slaughtered--but it does mean that nobody was going to miss him when he eventually disappeared, which everybody knew was going to happen at some point. He was a Triumph rip-off, and his eventual disappearance was going to be met with the same who-gives-a-shit reaction that Triumph's multiple deaths were met with. But 2010 being 2010, you can't kill one of these fuckers--even one that had a fan base that numbered in the hot zeroes--without rolling out the memories. And since this guy doesn't have an actual past to point at, the memories are all made up on the fly: he used to fuck Rogue, because he could touch her and that's all it takes for her to spread; Ben Grimm apparently would've killed lots of bad guys (and thereby saved at least one school bus full of children from a horrible death) if it wasn't for the Sentry's moral rectitude, and Tony Stark needs to get to more meetings, because he doesn't know when to shut the fuck up about his personal life.

That Shitty Green Arrow Preview In A Bunch Of DC Books

Fuck Green Arrow. If you were a cop, and there was some asshole fighting crime in a small park at the center of an urban area in the city you were protecting, you'd fucking call in the swat team and arrest the fucking prick, and if he was shooting people with bow and arrow, you'd cap him on sight. Big ups though for making the gang rapists white. If DC is only going to be patrolled by white folks, it would be pretty creepy if all the criminals didn't follow.

Perspective matters, sure, i'll buy that with the same amount of cash dollars I'll pay for The Internet Making A Difference, but still: this is a comic book about a chick hero, right? The one in the movie that people like paying for, right? What's she done so far? Well, she's gotten her ass kicked all the way to the hospital to clear the decks so Wolve-a-fucking-rine can handle her shit for her, and then she's used the "i'm a lady who is a sick, see me cry" to fool a couple of dudes into an ass-kicking, and then a bald freak who stole the Watcher's forehead talked to some guys who used to have sex with her about how they all had sex with her and probably can't trust her because, you know, vagina blindness. And it works on two of them! Two of them go "man, she just fucked me to trick me. What a mean lady, i'm going to let strange bald men hunt her down." Now, sure, female empowerment isn't really the goal with these things, but for christs fucking sake, can't we hold off on "a bunch of ex-fuck buddies are going to fix your life for you, you dumb slut, so just keep playing with flowers and having meet-ups with your fellow can't-support-a-series gal pals" kind of shit until after there's been a really solid run of non-embarrassing comics? That's how they did it with Catwoman after all, and a certain successful Captain America/Criminal thing came out of that one.

War of the Superman # 2Written by Sterling Gates & James RobinsonArt by Eduardo Pansica, Wayne FaucherPublished by DC Comics

Apparently Sterling Gates or James Robinson have a bone to pick with "the media", based off the cynical way in which they present Perry White and the Daily Planet. According to this comic, when something newsworthy occurs--for instance, when a planet and its entirety of inhabitants are brutally eliminated in an American-led first strike--Perry's second action after stopping the presses is to order his staff to seek out "public reaction" and "expert opinions". You'd think that a newsman might want to first make sure he can verify the story, that he can then tell the story, but according to this, Perry's impulse is to first find out exactly what the local hot dog vendor thinks. Hey dummy! You got to tell the morons first for the morons to deliver their moron reactions! Alternatively, this could have just been a minor screw-up attributable to bad scheduling, shitty writing and shoddy editing, but considering that this is a Superman comic supervised and created by a crack team of DC's best employees, merely thinking something like that is laughable. There would be no reason for DC to put anyone but their best on Superman comics.

Initial response: Dick Grayson fucking sucks but so does this. What a boring piece of shit this was. Cavemen speak English? That old school rocket ship? The Joker is still around? Bucket of nonsense.

Current response: Ahhhhokayyeah okay, shit happens, ergo doing stuff.

You know what, here's the skinny: Batman comics. These cost the right amount.

No, move on, move forward. Grant Morrison has the best possible thing going for him in terms of public relations, in that he's got a mystique going that nobody else can claim, even Alan Moore, which is that Grant Morrison comics are like, controversial, you know? Not real world controversial, where you can't get anybody's attention unless you drill a bunch of skanks and make a You-As-Hitler picture that everybody finds out about right after you were caught crying for your wife at the Academy Awards because she won an award for Best Job Pulling The Thorn of Poverty From Freakishly Big Black Man's Paw, no, Grant's controversies are more teakettle and cuppa soup, more Misspelled I Hate That Fucker Rants against You're A Fucking Moron He's SnawSome and Is Doing Something Totally New And I'm So Unique And Special And I Like New Things response, and it's still the same let's-do-an-us-and-them nonsense as it was after Final Crisis, let's not repeat ourselves. (Or at least not so much, again, for the seventh time.) Part of the problem is that this is America, where you, through nothing more than purchasing and liking a different kind of entertainment, can define yourself as being Forward Thinking and Different and Iconoclastic because you spend your money on a different version of luxury entertainment, because, hey, isn't that how the world defines greatness? By arguing about what your favorite Counting Crows song is?

Shit, give him some credit: you can't get that kind of controversy out of a Greg Pak comic. Somehow, Grant's in the position where asking If You Liked That Thing He Wrote is more fraught with emotion than anything else, it's a CLICHE AHEAD love 'em or hate 'em thing that seems to always have about a billion spiky arguments about taste buried in its rosy thickets. Hell, Mark Millar arguments don't last as long as Morrison's, and Mark Millar's comics have resulted in Angelina Jolie nude scenes.

Jesus, Who Cares, Right? Do we have to wring our hands everytime the guy puts out another chunk of comics? Every time the guy puts something out, everybody has to go OCD on the antibacterial soap. Hell, my own palms are encrusted with blood! Lanolin burns like fire! And man, some of these comics, now that there's so many, some of them are just going to be fucking run-of-the-mill superhero comics, and if there's one thing that there's too much of, it's comics blogs it's run-of-the-mill superhero comics. It's always going to be impressive that Grant has pulled off the trick of convincing people that comic art isn't the primary draw, that the visual just doesn't matter, that only the story does. He's not alone! It's an extensive, constructed deception years in the making. It's a fucking lie. Words & plots aren't stories in comics. The story is the two things together, it's the art and the writing, it's them working together to create that weird mongrel hybrid. Does he pull it off here? Of course not. He clearly doesn't care--you can't read an interview where the guy proudly admits to being unaware of who will draw what he's writing or what the finished product will look like and not grasp that he absolutely doesn't give a shit--but that doesn't necessarily mean that a talented artist like Chris Sprouse can't exploit whatever hypno pellets Grant embroiders his visionary idea machines upon. And Sprouse does some of that, which--considering the nastiness inherent in Andy Kubert's cover, where a prehistoric man-beast gets incisor deep in Bruce Wayne's abdominal--is a damn good thing, because most of the time, a Kubert Batman is just a reminder of how ugly the Batman title become when he and JH Williams bailed for non-Morrison pastures. Sprouse can draw a fight, he can manage an exhausted face, and while his backgrounds are all washed into a bland sameness by the lazy color palate, the environments fit together, these hills and these valleys never arrive in panels with a sense of random need. He makes do, is what he does.

Comments

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Nicely done.

That Indian wrestling bit is priceless - he clearly committed to the figure too early, came up with a quick solution and thought nobody would notice. In all fairness, drawing too characters making a point of contact like that (especially when you are showing their feet as well too) is extremely hard.

There doesn't actually seem to be any review of Astonishing X-Men whatsoever, Mr. S. I'm not saying I deserve it, I'm _entitled_ to it, this here is free, I come here to see the things I also bought pilloried and have lulz, etc.

But, you know, there probably are too many comic blogs and yet I still got banned from Standard Attrition for defending them, you primarily. (Well. It may have been because I called Brian Wood a "massive crying penis", I'm not privy to the decision.)

So, I don't know. I'd quite like to see Xenogenesis mocked into the ground, because it's part of the experience, but whatever if you're too busy.

even if i agree with some points in those revies -most of them, in fact- ... i can say that you come out of it looking just cynical and mean-spirited, wich is kind of sad since it takes away some validity to what you are saying. i know you re not looking for 'validation' when writting these things, but come on, as a regular reader of this site i know that you can be interesting-sharp-funny-and-a-little-irreverent without sounding, well, bitter...

-and i'm not pulling the 'regular reader' card becouse i have some kind of weird sense of entitlement, just to say that i really enjoy reading this site regularly :) -

Seriously going with the racism angle with Ryan? Well whatever you feel works.

Honestly got bored halfway through your Batman post, but Astonishing video was the best. Did you make that or find it?

Also two moments of blah blah nerd stuff from me
1). Lois said NASA confirmed NK was gone, most people take confirmation from NASA at face value when it comes to planets.
2). Cavemen english is a perspective flip, its why Bruce appears to be speaking gibberish. Also in an interview (I'm one of those no-lifers who checks Newsarama/CBR religiously) Morrison says cavemen speaking in all grunts was overused so he decided to have them speak like australian aboriginal people.

I like battle damage Tucker where you hit his breastplate and it flips around to reveal another breastplate that's fucked up with gashes. It's almost as cool as my Ray Mescallado figure where you put his metal endoskeleton in a mold and it gets covered with bio-flesh you can tear off when he fights your He-Man guys.

I've never understood the raving over Morrison's stuff, but then again I've never understood how mainstream comics has become such a writer-dominated culture, either. No one would give a second thought to Seven Soldiers if DC hadn't assigned it artists like JH Williams and Frazer Irving, just like no one would give a shit about League of Extraordinary Gentlemen if it wasn't for Kevin O'Neill's art.

Has anyone ever commented in this blog, at which we are, words along the lines of, "Tucker? I don't even know 'er?" I feel that doing so would be an effective play on word fragments and pertinent to the conversation as well. I implore anyone to consider doing so.

Also, this is the totally appropriate time and place to point out that when I predicted that Oberon Sexton was the Riddler, I was in one sense 100 percent correct, but in a realer sense I was closer to about 85% correct.

I predict that "The Return of Bruce Wayne" will reveal that Bruce Wayne is the Riddler.

"You'd think that a newsman might want to first make sure he can verify the story, that he can then tell the story, but according to this, Perry's impulse is to first find out exactly what the local hot dog vendor thinks. "

No, the comic is exactly right, that is the newspaper business in the Year 2010.

I'm not saying it's not awful and stupid and the creative team shouldn't be ashamed, but they come by their awful stupid shamefulness honest.